The real point and delight of that Corporation Sunday was not fully
appreciated till later. It had been expected that the collection after
the sermon would be much larger than usual, because the congregation was
much larger than usual. But the church-wardens were startled to find it
four times as large as usual. They were further startled to find only
three threepenny-bits among all the coins. This singularity led to
comment and to note-comparing. Everybody had noticed for weeks past a
growing dearth of threepenny-bits. Indeed, threepenny-bits had
practically vanished from circulation in the Five Towns. On the Monday
it became known that the clerks of the various branches of the Universal
Thrift Club, Limited, had paid into the banks enormous and unparalleled
quantities of threepenny-bits, and for at least a week afterwards
everybody paid for everything in threepenny-bits. And the piquant news
passed from mouth to mouth that Denry, to the simple end of ensuring a
thumping collection for charities on Corporation Sunday, had used the
vast organisation of the Thrift Club to bring about a famine of
threepenny-bits. In the annals of the town that Sunday is referred to as
"Threepenny-bit Sunday," because it was so happily devoid of
threepenny-bits.
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